The Last Crossing

by Brian McGilloway

  ‘I don’t teach science,’ Tony said.

  ‘I’m not a match-maker either,’ Duggan said, ‘but I’ve set you up rightly this weekend.’

  Tony sighed. The request was not what he’d been expecting. In fact, it seemed fairly simple.

  ‘I need four or five, if you can,’ Duggan said. ‘But they have to be mercury thermometers now; the alcohol ones are no good to me.’

  ‘What do you need them for?’

  ‘To take the fucking temperature,’ Duggan laughed. ‘What do you think I need them for?’

  Tony joined half-heartedly in the joke. ‘No worries,’ he said, wondering not just how he was to manage to steal thermometers from his school, but for what purpose Duggan really needed them.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ the older man said. ‘No one will know you’d anything to do with it.’

  Tony shook his head, as if the thought had not occurred to him, but he noticed Duggan’s expression darken, as if he had somehow failed a private test the man had set for him. And strangely, he found himself keen to prove himself to the older man.

  ‘Five thermometers,’ he said. ‘No problem.’

  ‘That’s it,’ Duggan said, slapping him on the upper arm. ‘Good man yourself.’

  Chapter Twelve

  ‘Good man yourself,’ Duggan said, as Barr laid two plates of breakfasts onto the table in front of them before heading back up to the service area for the rest. Tony, just arrived back from the toilet, felt a pang of guilt at the manner in which the young man was being treated, and the eagerness with which he accepted such treatment.

  ‘I’ll give him a hand,’ he said to no one in particular, and followed Barr to the food counter.

  He was standing, his wallet in hand, pulling out two twenty-pound notes, his legs apart in order to accommodate the increased swaying of the boat as they made their way out into the Irish Sea.

  ‘I’ll just get your tea. Do you need a receipt, love?’ the cashier asked.

  ‘No thanks,’ Barr said, pushing the crinkled tenner change she’d handed him back into his wallet.

  ‘Yes, he will,’ Tony said. The younger man looked at him. ‘You shouldn’t be paying for our dinners,’ Tony explained. ‘Claim that off your uncle. Or whoever is paying for this.’

  ‘I don’t mind,’ Barr said. ‘It’s a real honour, meeting you all. Mr Duggan’s a legend. I mean, you’re all legends, but–’

  ‘I’m no legend, son,’ Tony said. ‘I clean the church twice a week to fill my days.’

  Barr didn’t disagree. ‘Uncle Sean said to make sure you were all well looked after. We appreciate what you’re doing here. It’s not easy.’

  We, Tony thought. He was learning the political lingo already, despite his youth.

  ‘It’s the right thing to do,’ Tony said. ‘Even if it is dragging up some memories I’d rather have forgotten.’

  They waited until the cashier came back with three small pots of tea that she placed on a second tray, which Tony lifted and followed Barr. The younger man stopped near an empty table, the swell of the sea shifting the boat. He leaned his arm on the back of the seat to steady himself. Tony drew alongside and waited for the swell to subside a little.

  ‘I don’t think Mr Duggan likes me,’ Barr asked, as if finally feeling he could articulate his deepest concern to someone.

  ‘Do you care?’ Tony asked, a little needlessly for it was clear that the youth did. ‘Hugh can be prickly. Give it time. And for God’s sake stop calling him Mr Duggan.’

  Barr smiled, nodding curtly, then continued on with the tray to where the others sat.

  Hugh had already eaten half his breakfast fry while Karen had cut the rind off her bacon but had clearly waited for Tony and Barr before starting to eat.

  ‘So, we know how each of us got involved in all this,’ Karen said when they’d all sat down and started their meal. ‘How did you get involved?’ The question was directed at Barr, emphasised with a jab of her fork in his direction.

  ‘I studied political sciences at college,’ Barr said. ‘I specialized in the Northern Irish conflict as part of my final year. After Dad died, we moved down to Galway. I’d always wanted to move back to the North again.’

  Duggan glanced at Karen and Tony, shook his head lightly, then turned his attention to his plate again.

  ‘When I was old enough, my mum sent me back to live with Uncle Sean.’

  ‘My mother sent me to Scotland to keep me away from men like your uncle Sean,’ Tony offered with a rueful laugh.

  ‘I got into a bit of trouble at home,’ Barr admitted, smiling bashfully. ‘I broke into the local Garda station and stole a uniform.’

  ‘What?’ Karen spluttered as she chewed. ‘Why?’

  ‘To see if I could. They nearly went mad looking for it.’

  Duggan chuckled. ‘Time was, I’d have done something similar myself,’ he said. ‘I remember stealing my teacher’s car when I was at school to run myself and some of the lads down for a riot. We drove back up afterwards and left it back in the staff car park and the dozy bastard never even knew it was gone.’

  Barr smiled warmly, happy to be part of the sharing of tales of past glory.

  ‘But why did you get involved in all this?’ Karen asked. ‘How did you get politicised?’

  Barr frowned. ‘I don’t know what you mean?’

  ‘She means why did you want to be part of something the rest of us have tried to forget,’ Tony explained.

  ‘Speak for yourself,’ Duggan muttered, spearing a piece of sausage on his fork then chewing it.

  ‘The war’s not over,’ Barr said. ‘Not as far as I’m concerned. There’s unfinished business.’

  Karen looked at Tony and rolled her eyes, though whether at the earnestness of the young man’s comments or his actual views, Tony could not say.

  ‘The problem with that,’ Duggan said, as if stirring himself to speak, ‘is that the fuckers who sent us out to fight, they were playing a game all along, except we didn’t know. Some of them taking the King’s shilling while they did it,’ he said, then added, darkly, ‘That’s not changed.’

  ‘It wasn’t a game,’ Karen said, her voice soft, but with a steeliness Tony recalled even from three decades earlier. ‘Whatever you call it, it wasn’t remotely a game.’

  ‘Not to us,’ Duggan said. ‘But those fuckers that sent us out to kill or die, sitting in the pockets of our enemies the whole time. Or once they got into their pockets, sitting in power joking and laughing with the very fuckers they sent us out to fight in the first place.’

  ‘People change,’ Tony offered.

  ‘Bollocks,’ Duggan snapped. ‘People don’t change. They just become older and more extreme versions of themselves. Look at us. We’re no different now from what we were back then. Just more extreme versions of what we were.’

  ‘I’ve changed,’ Tony said.

  ‘No, you haven’t,’ Duggan said. ‘I remember asking you to get me a few thermometers, to see if you were right for what we needed. I could tell you were shitting yourself about doing it.’

  ‘That’s not true,’ Tony said. ‘I just was uneasy with stealing things from a school.’

  ‘See what I mean? A conscience.’

  ‘You say that like it’s a bad thing.’

  ‘I’ve done rightly without one.’

  ‘You don’t regret anything?’

  ‘Me?’ Duggan laughed, without humour. ‘I’m that French bird, Piaf. Je ne regrette rien.’

  ‘Not even Martin Kelly?’ Tony asked.

  Duggan stared at him, his eyes vacillating between anger and pain, then clouding and becoming unreadable once more.

  It was Karen who spoke. ‘There’s times I get the smell of burning cloth in my nose and I’m back in that forest again. Those moments aren’t happy ones.’

  ‘And how do you deal with all that shit in your head?’ Duggan asked. ‘What do you do with all your pity and guilt?’

  ‘I try to forget it,’ Karen said.
‘I go about my day, go to work, make dinners, pack lunches, live a normal life. I’ve spent the past thirty years trying to forget.’

  ‘See,’ Duggan said, using his fork to point in Karen’s direction, though he spoke to Tony. ‘No change. She’s as pragmatic now as she was thirty years ago. Just more so now.’

  ‘I didn’t say I always succeeded in doing it. But I was doing OK until I got dragged back into this,’ Karen added. ‘You can’t forget when people are forcing you to remember.’

  ‘You had your reasons for doing what you did, back then,’ Duggan said. ‘For why you got involved. That never changes. Your reasons for joining.’

  ‘We all had reasons,’ Karen countered. ‘Mine was no better or worse than anyone else’s.’

  ‘Why did you get involved? Barr asked.

  ‘Various things,’ Karen said, her gaze drifting towards Tony momentarily. ‘That’s all.’

  ‘What about you, Hugh?’ he asked, the assonance of the words causing him to stumble on the final one, despite his best efforts to say it as casually as possible.

  ‘It was my duty.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  Tony’s duty on a Tuesday involved him patrolling the corridors for a period before lunch, in case a colleague needed support. Tony used the period as a chance to read ahead of his senior class on their novel. He’d deliberately circled round past the science labs four times, waiting for the classes to finish for lunch and for the staff to go to the staff room or canteen. He knew that only the science technician remained behind in the department and they always took their lunch in their own prep room. If he waited until the lunch bell rang, he could get in and out of one of the labs without being seen. He’d been on cover the day before and had, by chance, spotted a drawer of thermometers in the teacher’s desk. He hoped that this was standard. There were two labs, so he reckoned the best thing to do would be to take the thermometers from the two different rooms so as not to draw too much suspicion

  On his final circuit of the corridors, the last teacher to leave, an English man called Peter, with the air of one who had studied for and left the priesthood, was just leaving his room. He looked up at Tony coming towards him, his open book in his hand. ‘At your breviary?’ Peter said.

  Tony laughed, a little louder than necessary and felt absurdly guilty in doing so. It was cut short when he saw Peter stoop and lock the classroom door.

  ‘Do you not trust the wee blighters?’ he asked.

  Peter shrugged. ‘You always lock the lab,’ he said. ‘Last thing we need is some little thug turning on all the gas when we’re out of the room.’

  Tony nodded. ‘Very wise,’ he said, slowing his pace to allow Peter to get well ahead of him. He knew there was little point in checking Peter’s class. The next door down belonged to the prep room, then a second lab on the far side of that. Both labs could be accessed through the interconnecting doors of the prep room, but it was there, he suspected, that the technician would be having lunch.

  He passed the prep room, confirming his assumption with a quick glance through the glass pane in the door. The technician was moving around inside, gathering up apparatus, as far as he could tell.

  He moved past the prep room to the second lab and tried the handle. It too was locked. He knew that the doors could be unlocked from the inside; if he could make his way into the lab through the prep room, he’d be able to get back out again through this door.

  He lingered a moment at the end of the corridor, then turned and came back again, passing the labs and glancing once more into the prep room. The technician had a grey apparatus tray in his hands and was heading towards the rear of the room, to where the connecting doors into the two labs where positioned. Tony saw him turn into the right and pulling open the door, go into lab 1.

  Almost without thought, he opened the prep room door and, as quietly as he could, made his way up to the back of the area. He glanced quickly right to where the technician stood, his back to the open door, unloading equipment at the fume cupboard. Just as quickly, Tony opened the door of the lab to the left and went inside, pulling the door softly closed behind him.

  Only when he reached the desk and put his hand on the handle of the drawer did he realise he was shaking, his legs jittery with adrenaline. He puffed a breath, glanced about him, then quickly checked the corners of the ceiling for a security camera. The burglar alarm monitor winked red at his movement and, for a second, gave him reason to pause.

  He steeled himself, then slid open the drawer. The thermometers were still there, where he had last seen them. There were seven in total; he took two, putting them carefully into his inside pocket. He slid the drawer shut.

  ‘Are you OK?’

  He jolted around, swearing audibly with shock at the voice. The lab technician stood, the same grey tray in hand.

  ‘I was covering here yesterday and forgot my book,’ he said, holding aloft the novel which he had been carrying. His initial pride at the speed of his lie was immediately countered by a realisation that, having now seemingly found the book, he had no reason to go into the other lab. ‘I think I left work in here, too,’ he added, rolling his eyes. ‘Head like a sieve, you know?’

  ‘Do you need a hand?’ the technician asked, looking at the desk which was completely clear.

  Tony shook his head. ‘I was covering for Peter at the time. This is his room, right?’

  ‘Next door,’ the technician said, heading across to the fume cupboard.

  ‘Thanks,’ Tony said, moving back to the door into the prep room.

  ‘Mary must have borrowed your book,’ the technician offered as he unloaded the beakers of solution into the unit.

  ‘What?’

  ‘If you left it in Peter’s room, but found it in here; Mary must have borrowed the book to read.’

  Tony nodded. ‘Yeah,’ he offered in half-hearted agreement.

  ‘I’d not have taken her for a reader,’ the man added.

  Tony managed a second murmur of amusement, then headed into the prep room and straight across into Peter’s room. He made straight for the desk and slid open the drawer. Empty.

  Swearing silently, and aware that the technician might come back into the room at any moment, he quickly opened the doors of the cupboards behind the desk.

  The speaker in the corner crackled into life. ‘Mr Canning, contact Reception, please,’ a voice lilted through the static.

  Tony felt himself flustered. He pulled open the next door and finally, found a small cardboard box in which rested about a dozen thermometers. He lifted three of them and stuffed them clinking into his inside pocket.

  Just as he closed the cupboard door, he heard Peter’s voice.

  ‘That place is getting worse. The curry looks revolting!’ He’d clearly brought his lunch back up to eat in the prep room.

  Tony wondered, momentarily, whether to brazen his way back out through the prep room, but to do so would involve having to use his excuse with Peter, and something about the man suggested he would remember whether or not Tony had been covering his class over the previous week or two.

  Instead, he cut across the room, clutching his jacket tight against his breast to stop the glass thermometers from clattering together or, worse, breaking in his pocket.

  He reached the handle, turning the knob slowly until he heard the dead bolt click back from its place. Turning the handle, he backed out of the room, keeping an eye for either Peter or the technician, closing the door softly behind him.

  He turned and swore a second time when he saw Alice staring at him. She was seated on a window bench, which had been built into the alcove opposite Peter’s door.

  ‘Hi, sir,’ Alice smiled.

  Tony felt his heart thud in his chest, imagined he could head the mild clink of the glass rods striking against each other with the vibration.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Tony said, more crossly than he had intended. ‘You’re not meant to be up here during lunch time.’

  The girl�
�s eyes filled instantly. ‘I forgot my lunch money, sir,’ she said, her lip quivering.

  Tony instantly regretted the tone he had taken. At that, perhaps hearing the raised voice, the prep room door opened and Peter glanced out. Evidently, seeing Tony standing out there, and knowing that he had been on corridor duty earlier, he felt no suspicion.

  ‘Everything all right, sir?’ he asked. He looked at the girl. ‘What’s wrong now, Miss Hamilton?’

  ‘I forgot my lunch money, sir,’ she repeated.

  Peter tutted. ‘Again?’

  ‘My father forgot to give it to me, sir,’ she said, her voice reedy.

  Tony studied her, her hair pulled back, with frazzles of hair having escaped the loosely tied elastic that held the ponytail in place. Her eyes were dull, her skin pale. Grey as dishwater, his mother would have said.

  ‘Have you nothing to eat?’ Tony asked.

  The girl shook her head, not quite meeting his gaze, her head lightly bowed. Tony realised why she was sitting here now; the alternative would be to sit in the canteen with her classmates who would find cause, no doubt, to comment on her having no lunch and no money.

  He put his hand into his pocket and pulled out three one-pound notes. He offered them to the Alice.

  ‘Buy yourself something nice. What do you fancy? Chips?’